One of Latin America's most distinguished authors, Juan Carlos Onetti was born in Uruguay and won the country's National Literature Prize in 1962, but fled to Spain after being a political prisoner in his country during the 1970s. Let the Wind Speak was his first novel written in exile, published in 1979, and concerns Medina, who at different times of his life is a phony doctor, a painter, and a police chief. Medina lives across the river from Santa Maria—the town of his childhood, from which he is barred. As he comes to terms with his exile, Medina recalls his first sexual conquests, his first cigarettes, and his first double whiskeys, all the while wishing to destroy the town he had once called home.